LWDT IX: Discussing the Left From All Engels

[Novus America]

I really have no idea what the last paragraph is saying.
Again you throw around empire in a way such it loses meaning.
Again imperialism and “capitalism” can coexist, but you can have imperialism without capitalism again given imperialism long predates “capitalism” and even ants engage in imperialism.

Empire is a book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(H ... Negri_book)
This book is one of the key ones of the postmodern left and academia, specifically from the tendency of autonomism, which served to dig the grave of communism fighting leninism. This is why I say... that there is a postmodern left that is degenerated. They replace scientific analysis and everything rightist becomes an empire in abstract. Instead of the analysis of imperialism of Lenin, they pick that.

But absolutely while imperialism still exists, the French and British Empires are largely gone, there are far more independent countries now than ever before, at least going back centuries.
Thus the height of it is past.

The title of empire doesn't mean it's necessarily more invasive. An important component as I pointed out before is the concentration of enterprises, more prominent, and better not to mention the potential of modern wars with new technology and intelligence in comparison to those old empires.

You even acknowledge Marx was wrong in his timing

I didn't. I just said that Marx had writings that applied to his times, and Lenin updated them to modern times. But both are true in their times, therefore nothing wrong.

He was right on some things, wrong on others. The “ideal” system has not yet been proposed and probably never will be, but we already have better systems than anything Marxist or the Soviets did. The simple fact the Nordics engage in some foreign trade and alliances does not negate that.
That is they key here, no one system or ideology in the past has all the answers.

Specific models are an exercise of neo-utopianism, but we already have templates, for example: http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/so ... ialism.pdf
I think the ideal system is anarchotranshumanism, which can only be achieved through communism so it doesn't derivate in a hierarchic dystopia. But that's alien to marxism actually, I take it more personally, since marxism isn't idealist.

But I doubt we will get anywhere, you are stuck looking at the past, with rose tinted glasses.
And such the future will leave your ideas behind.

We have to look at the past to know what happened and correct it. You've not proven yet to me that I look with rose tinted glasses, just that you follow bourgeois and deviated left historiography. Still, the left will keep failing until it doesn't correct those "postmodern innovations". Guess who's leaving the ideas behind, the only arising movements proposing a solution from the left are those who you could consider "looking at the past". On the other side there are useless trot-socdems that keep falling after the population wakes up. They either go to our side or to the rightist side. Also, funny how the FARC guerilla changed its official stance from maoism to pro-Hoxha ML in modern times. May they see that there's something wrong that has to be corrected and it's the only way forward? Now they started it and got into the mess, degenerated. Yet they changed they recognized it.

Plus you seem confused. What do you really like the Soviets? Because they built a superpower? And an imperial one? Is you goal to just get more power? Or to make a working economic system that benefits people the most? While not mutually exclusive in theory you do not seem to be sure what you want. Again I am not even sure what you are really advocating here.
It is more apologism for the past than actually advocating anything usable for the future though. It is all railing about the present while thinking the answers lie in the past.

Nothing more rightist than liking something because it has "big armies" and the soldiers look badass... Those are bourgeois misrepresentations of the USSR, and they resemble more fascistic mentality than a communist one.
"Or to make a working economic system that benefits people the most?" This is what I want.
We have to rant about the present and talk about the past because all the present deviation which hinders the (present) advancement comes from that past, and it's strengthened on attacks on their figures, and from it, their fundamental texts of theory and what has to be done to win.
Part of the people goes to the right after seeing the wrongs of the false left, confusion even in definitions reigns and they feed each other, we have to break the cycle.

The problem is still you assume the best system already existed and we have to go back to that.
Flowery language aside, that is reactionary.
The Soviet Union was not the “true” or best left. But you assume it was.
As such your idealism of the past is the sticking point we cannot get past.

Here is your problem, you have completely failed to prove why we should want the Soviet system. Why it is better than others. Why we cannot build something better.

But if you do not care about the soldiers and military power, why praise the Soviet Union for making a superpower? Building that much military power cane at great cost to the the people.
They were always better at producing weapons than consumer goods.
And it was Khrushchev who sought to reduce military costs so as to improve living standards!

Even I think Soviet military spending was ludicrous.
So the Soviets clearly did not have the answers, they did not do the best for the workers.

And your cause is a lost one. The Soviet Union is dead and not coming back.
But again I see no room to progress here. You are stuck in the past, I want to move on to a better future.

[Upper Nan]

Well Diem was a fool. Or at least he listened to idiots in his family too much. Although he gave it some legitimacy his idiotic policies towards the Buddhists doomed the South.

It didn't help, but to say it "doomed" the South is complete nonsense. For one, Buddhism was much stronger in the North than the South. Secondly, the Communists were hardly friends to the Buddhist community, either. Though, Marxism and Buddhism are definitely more compatible with Marxism and Catholicism (Liberation Theory, notwithstanding).

Diem very much was the problem.

Absolutely not supported by evidence. Everything I've read about the Vietnam War points to Diem being the only thing keeping South Vietnam alive. He was brutally anti-Buddhist, yes, but was also even more brutally anti-communist. Even the North were surprised when the US let Diem get overthrown. In whichever one of the above books I mentioned (pretty sure it's America's Longest War), internal memos in the North outright said that Diem's overthrow was the worst thing that could've happened to the South and the best for them. They were shocked, but ecstatic.

He alienated the majority of the population including much of the military with the anti Buddhist stuff.
We told him to knock it off, stop it. But he refused to listen to reason.

It was less his anti-Buddhism per se and more his violence towards the Buddhist community. Even Diem's fellow Catholics were offended by his actions towards the Buddhists. I'm not at all trying to defend his actions towards them, but the South was still very much better off with him than without. That's why the US didn't actively get involved in the coup and just sat back and let events play out. There was a lot of conflict in the State Dept. over support for Diem. While pretty much everyone agreed that Diem was the best anti-communist they had in the South, Kennedy's moralism won out in the end and he let it happen (though, he wasn't expected him to get killed and was very upset when he heard about it).

I'm not saying Diem was the best possible leader they could've had, but he was the best possible leader they could've had at that time and place.

I guess this is semantics but I would say client state was more appropriate a term.
A puppet by definition cannot act on its own.
It obeys. The South Vietnamese government relies in us, but often doing the exact opposite of what we told it to do. And usually our advice was actually pretty sound.

A distinction without a difference. Also, this is an extremely reductionist view on puppet states. They're not called that because they're literally puppets. The notion that puppet states must necessarily act according to the whims of their overlord is absolutely not supported by history. While some did, plenty of others tried to retain a level of independence and sovereignty and often acted against their overlord's whims. The best examples of this are probably Romania and Somalia, both withing the Communist Bloc. Both were puppet regimes of the USSR (the former even moreso), but they still managed to go directly against Moscow on more than one occasion (to offer examples, Ceacescu opposing the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Barre invading communist Ethiopia).

I am not saying we did the entirely right thing in Vietnam, just that the whole “US vs Vietnam” thing does not adequately explain the complexity.
We had an ally we tried to protect, as flawed as that ally was.

Calling them an "ally" implies, to me at least, that they held some kind of equal footing, which they didn't. At all. The RVN's existence was entirely dependent upon continued US support, that doesn't really sound like an "alliance" to me. The US ultimately gained absolutely nothing out of the arrangement, just a bunch of corpses and wasted money, while South Vietnam derived the benefit of existing longer than it would've otherwise. Again, if that was an alliance, it was an extremely shitty and one-sided one.

But on France although in hindsight we could never make DeGaul happy, Suez was quite different.
Suez was France outright invading a place it never owned, not fighting a rebellion.

I doubt France particularly cared about that distinction. Their national pride was hurt, that's all de Gaulle saw.

And had we gone against them in BOTH cases it would be even worse in terms of trying to keep France somewhat on our side.

No argument there.

The problem there too was the same thing. The problem is quite often our allies did insanely stupid shit that got us in a bad situation with no possible good outcomes.

Again, no argument from me.

True in retrospect the DRV had weak ideology beyond anti imperialism, it was little more than a stratocracy after Ho that had little idea how to do anything but fight.

And true it makes sense long term they would want us to protect them against the PRC.
But of course at the time our view and even theirs was different.
In hindsight yes the war was pointless. But I do not think it was simple a us being the bad guy either.

I never said we were the bad guy, at least not initially. Though, I'd say we definitely became the bad guy by staying well after the war had already been lost and accomplishing nothing but adding more American and Vietnamese bodies to the already-massive pile. Ofc, as a nationalist, my sympathies lie with the Vietnamese simply because it was a war for national liberation, but I do understand the US perspective for starting the war and I think it was more misguided than evil.

[Novus America]

Well Diem was a fool. Or at least he listened to idiots in his family too much. Although he gave it some legitimacy his idiotic policies towards the Buddhists doomed the South.

It didn't help, but to say it "doomed" the South is complete nonsense. For one, Buddhism was much stronger in the North than the South. Secondly, the Communists were hardly friends to the Buddhist community, either. Though, Marxism and Buddhism are definitely more compatible with Marxism and Catholicism (Liberation Theory, notwithstanding).

Diem very much was the problem.

Absolutely not supported by evidence. Everything I've read about the Vietnam War points to Diem being the only thing keeping South Vietnam alive. He was brutally anti-Buddhist, yes, but was also even more brutally anti-communist. Even the North were surprised when the US let Diem get overthrown. In whichever one of the above books I mentioned (pretty sure it's America's Longest War), internal memos in the North outright said that Diem's overthrow was the worst thing that could've happened to the South and the best for them. They were shocked, but ecstatic.

He alienated the majority of the population including much of the military with the anti Buddhist stuff.
We told him to knock it off, stop it. But he refused to listen to reason.

It was less his anti-Buddhism per se and more his violence towards the Buddhist community. Even Diem's fellow Catholics were offended by his actions towards the Buddhists. I'm not at all trying to defend his actions towards them, but the South was still very much better off with him than without. That's why the US didn't actively get involved in the coup and just sat back and let events play out. There was a lot of conflict in the State Dept. over support for Diem. While pretty much everyone agreed that Diem was the best anti-communist they had in the South, Kennedy's moralism won out in the end and he let it happen (though, he wasn't expected him to get killed and was very upset when he heard about it).

I'm not saying Diem was the best possible leader they could've had, but he was the best possible leader they could've had at that time and place.

I guess this is semantics but I would say client state was more appropriate a term.
A puppet by definition cannot act on its own.
It obeys. The South Vietnamese government relies in us, but often doing the exact opposite of what we told it to do. And usually our advice was actually pretty sound.

A distinction without a difference. Also, this is an extremely reductionist view on puppet states. They're not called that because they're literally puppets. The notion that puppet states must necessarily act according to the whims of their overlord is absolutely not supported by history. While some did, plenty of others tried to retain a level of independence and sovereignty and often acted against their overlord's whims. The best examples of this are probably Romania and Somalia, both withing the Communist Bloc. Both were puppet regimes of the USSR (the former even moreso), but they still managed to go directly against Moscow on more than one occasion (to offer examples, Ceacescu opposing the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Barre invading communist Ethiopia).

I am not saying we did the entirely right thing in Vietnam, just that the whole “US vs Vietnam” thing does not adequately explain the complexity.
We had an ally we tried to protect, as flawed as that ally was.

Calling them an "ally" implies, to me at least, that they held some kind of equal footing, which they didn't. At all. The RVN's existence was entirely dependent upon continued US support, that doesn't really sound like an "alliance" to me. The US ultimately gained absolutely nothing out of the arrangement, just a bunch of corpses and wasted money, while South Vietnam derived the benefit of existing longer than it would've otherwise. Again, if that was an alliance, it was an extremely shitty and one-sided one.

But on France although in hindsight we could never make DeGaul happy, Suez was quite different.
Suez was France outright invading a place it never owned, not fighting a rebellion.

I doubt France particularly cared about that distinction. Their national pride was hurt, that's all de Gaulle saw.

And had we gone against them in BOTH cases it would be even worse in terms of trying to keep France somewhat on our side.

No argument there.

The problem there too was the same thing. The problem is quite often our allies did insanely stupid shit that got us in a bad situation with no possible good outcomes.

Again, no argument from me.

True in retrospect the DRV had weak ideology beyond anti imperialism, it was little more than a stratocracy after Ho that had little idea how to do anything but fight.

And true it makes sense long term they would want us to protect them against the PRC.
But of course at the time our view and even theirs was different.
In hindsight yes the war was pointless. But I do not think it was simple a us being the bad guy either.

I never said we were the bad guy, at least not initially. Though, I'd say we definitely became the bad guy by staying well after the war had already been lost and accomplishing nothing but adding more American and Vietnamese bodies to the already-massive pile. Ofc, as a nationalist, my sympathies lie with the Vietnamese simply because it was a war for national liberation, but I do understand the US perspective for starting the war and I think it was more misguided than evil.

Well the very fact there was a coup is evidence Diem was a problem.
He lost support of much of the military, and what good is a leader who lacks sufficient military support?
Sure his removal made things even worse, but keeping him in power would have bee difficult assuming we even could.

Although on all fairness to Diem by some reports Madame Nhu was the real problem, and that she domineered him into pushing more violence against the Buddhists.
She was an anti-American lunatic who hated Buddhism.
Maybe if we had somehow taken her out of the picture...

But alas sure DRV was not good to Buddhists either but that was part of the point.
Had he just treated them a little less harshly he could have gained support in both the north and the south on account of that.
Treating them decently would have kept him and power and weakened the north.
That was all that was most needed. We told him, and he did not listen, so I have little sympathy for him, despite the fact his removal just caused more instability.

Again and ally doing something so stupid as to leave us with no good options.

The problem I have more is we went into the war without a real plan.
If you are going to fight a war you fight to win, but like you said we just got more killed for no purpose.

But yes I cannot say the war really has a clear cut good or bad guy, just was a tragedy all around.
That accomplished nothing. I cannot hate the north either, like you said I too have some sympathy towards their point of view as well.

[Byeclase]

The problem is still you assume the best system already existed and we have to go back to that.
Flowery language aside, that is reactionary.
The Soviet Union was not the “true” or best left. But you assume it was.
As such your idealism of the past is the sticking point we cannot get past.

I don't want to go back, the USSR was forward. Now we are back and we must go forward. Anti-reactionary.
Idealism is against dialectical materialism.
I don't assume, I study and know it is the correct path.

Here is your problem, you have completely failed to prove why we should want the Soviet system. Why it is better than others. Why we cannot build something better.

In the face of all other deviations, there's no "instant pill". You can start reading the 5 classics Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha. Debunking some myths here may be a good step to start to put a seed of criticism.

But if you do not care about the soldiers and military power, why praise the Soviet Union for making a superpower? Building that much military power cane at great cost to the the people.
They were always better at producing weapons than consumer goods.
And it was Khrushchev who sought to reduce military costs so as to improve living standards!

-First of all, I praise that the leninist theory allowed them from being very backwards in tsarism to becoming a superpower, establishing a lot of rights for the people in few years. This isn't the achievement of a single country or nation, it was composed by lots of nationalities. It's an achievement of the people and communism. I praise the potential of leninism.
-Building the military power came at great cost to the people, but it was to save themselves in WW2 and not from extraction of surplus value. In imperialist countries you'd die fighting for enterprises not for the elevation of humanity which is communism.
-"Khruschev reduced military costs etc.". Khruschev is post WW2, so nevermind it isn't a good example. Military costs have to be lowered if they aren't needed anymore. Otherwise it means making the Union vulnerable to external aggression. Hoxha abolished direct taxes in the constitution, he stated taxes were transitional in socialism and filled the promise, improving the living standards.
The revisionist rulers of NK, DDR and Cuba also made improvements in healthcare and work, yet they are still those who prepare the path towards the full restoration of rightism (and capitalism already) by slashing marxism-leninism.
-Not always more consumption of goods is good. Jewelry can be considered consumer goods. There can be commodity fetishism. You can use products to alienate yourself, to evade from problems after long hours of work. You can use products and it will pollute the environment, use products which make a waste of valuable workforce that has to be directed towards certain efforts in some circumstances like war. But having taken all this into account... pre-Khruschev, the party already came from previous hard collectivizations and civil war, then WW2. Still surprising they made it. Thanks planned economy, saving the country from invaders, the world from fascism, establishing decent hours of work, healthcare, education, housing and more.

And your cause is a lost one. The Soviet Union is dead and not coming back.
But again I see no room to progress here. You are stuck in the past, I want to move on to a better future.

My cause is more alive in real life while still minoritarian than the tiny minority 60 trotskyist fractions that your historiography supports while the new left disappears in social democracy which can't transform society. But the narratives of those fractions rule the academia and the media.
When communist parties get serious they start getting orthodox. We still have to fight against postmodern leftism and neorevisionism. Most neorevisionist (which are the majority, not the trots or leftcoms) by the way denounce Khruschev like I do, they just stop there and are incoherent with the other parts they support, while we do it at all levels. But when people see the incoherence, they don't have other choice than adopting this position. The eurocommunists in Spain (also with EPL from ex-FARC, as pose) for example had to adopt the marxist-leninist label after so long time of formal "antistalinism" in the eyes of the public, yet they were still denounced because it was just a pose, and there's a process of "orthodoxization" from the deceived or previously not so well educated comrades.

Just in case, I want to clarify that I consider the groups mentioned deviations. Propagating armed struggle in a void doesn't imply being more principled. If the armed struggle isn't on the right conditions it would delay what has to come and cause deaths and prosecution; specially if it means becoming a puppet of drug lords or the bourgeoisie directly as their army. If the armed struggle delays the objective, then preaching it isn't more revolutionary.

[Novus America]

The problem is still you assume the best system already existed and we have to go back to that.
Flowery language aside, that is reactionary.
The Soviet Union was not the “true” or best left. But you assume it was.
As such your idealism of the past is the sticking point we cannot get past.

I don't want to go back, the USSR was forward. Now we are back and we must go forward. Anti-reactionary.
Idealism is against dialectical materialism.
I don't assume, I study and know it is the correct path.

Here is your problem, you have completely failed to prove why we should want the Soviet system. Why it is better than others. Why we cannot build something better.

In the face of all other deviations, there's no "instant pill". You can start reading the 5 classics Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha. Debunking some myths here may be a good step to start to put a seed of criticism.

But if you do not care about the soldiers and military power, why praise the Soviet Union for making a superpower? Building that much military power cane at great cost to the the people.
They were always better at producing weapons than consumer goods.
And it was Khrushchev who sought to reduce military costs so as to improve living standards!

-First of all, I praise that the leninist theory allowed them from being very backwards in tsarism to becoming a superpower, establishing a lot of rights for the people in few years. This isn't the achievement of a single country or nation, it was composed by lots of nationalities. It's an achievement of the people and communism. I praise the potential of leninism.
-Building the military power came at great cost to the people, but it was to save themselves in WW2 and not from extraction of surplus value. In imperialist countries you'd die fighting for enterprises not for the elevation of humanity which is communism.
-"Khruschev reduced military costs etc.". Khruschev is post WW2, so nevermind it isn't a good example. Military costs have to be lowered if they aren't needed anymore. Otherwise it means making the Union vulnerable to external aggression. Hoxha abolished direct taxes in the constitution, he stated taxes were transitional in socialism and filled the promise, improving the living standards.
The revisionist rulers of NK, DDR and Cuba also made improvements in healthcare and work, yet they are still those who prepare the path towards the full restoration of rightism (and capitalism already) by slashing marxism-leninism.
-Not always more consumption of goods is good. Jewelry can be considered consumer goods. There can be commodity fetishism. You can use products to alienate yourself, to evade from problems after long hours of work. You can use products and it will pollute the environment, use products which make a waste of valuable workforce that has to be directed towards certain efforts in some circumstances like war. But having taken all this into account... pre-Khruschev, the party already came from previous hard collectivizations and civil war, then WW2. Still surprising they made it. Thanks planned economy, saving the country from invaders, the world from fascism, establishing decent hours of work, healthcare, education, housing and more.

And your cause is a lost one. The Soviet Union is dead and not coming back.
But again I see no room to progress here. You are stuck in the past, I want to move on to a better future.

My cause is more alive in real life while still minoritarian than the tiny minority 60 trotskyist fractions that your historiography supports while the new left disappears in social democracy which can't transform society. But the narratives of those fractions rule the academia and the media.
When communist parties get serious they start getting orthodox. We still have to fight against postmodern leftism and neorevisionism. Most neorevisionist (which are the majority, not the trots or leftcoms) by the way denounce Khruschev like I do, they just stop there and are incoherent with the other parts they support, while we do it at all levels. But when people see the incoherence, they don't have other choice than adopting this position. The eurocommunists in Spain (also with EPL from ex-FARC, as pose) for example had to adopt the marxist-leninist label after so long time of formal "antistalinism" in the eyes of the public, yet they were still denounced because it was just a pose, and there's a process of "orthodoxization" from the deceived or previously not so well educated comrades.

Just in case, I want to clarify that I consider the groups mentioned deviations. Propagating armed struggle in a void doesn't imply being more principled. If the armed struggle isn't on the right conditions it would delay what has to come and cause deaths and prosecution; specially if it means becoming a puppet of drug lords or the bourgeoisie directly as their army. If the armed struggle delays the objective, then preaching it isn't more revolutionary.

The Soviet Union is backwards. You could argue it was forward in some ways for it’s time, at least before the stagnation era. But it is not to award of today. It is dead and gone. It is from the past, despite problems social democracy achieved living standards the Soviets could never dream of. Of course social democracy as currently practiced most be improved and reformed, it is not the end, only the beginning. Again there is no end, as soon as you get it right, situations change so you have to revise it again.

Also the Soviets retained ridiculous and unsustainable levels of military spending long after WWII. The thing was the military industrial complex had too much sway and power, and more was spent on international posturing over the people.
Have you heard about the Stalingrad-class battlecruiser? Stalin insisted on building at great expense them in 1951. Yet they were completely obsolete (a 1941 design) and pointless. After Stalin died Khrushchev canceled them because they were just a stupid vanity project without any real military necessity or purpose.

But here is the problem. You speak of orthodoxy, orthodoxy is religious. It has no place in public policy. You have nothing to demonstrate it is the best path beyond claiming it is the Orthodox one. Orthodoxy is irrelevant.
By making this about orthodoxy you have made this a religion. And debating religion goes nowhere.

[Hanafuridake]

If you claim Marxism is a science, you can't be against revisionism, because science is constantly being revised based on new data. You have a dogma.

[Liriena]

I'm really fascinated by how a lot of right-wing "libertarians" online seem to inevitably end up defending pre-modern monarchies and shitting on democracy and republicanism.

We saw it happen with the cringelords of Liberty Hangout, of course, and now the Argentine version of it did the same.

At first, you (understandably) think "that sounds like some serious cognitive dissonance", because those groups spend a lot of time appealing to (their interpretation of) classical liberal values and stuff. But then you realize... hang on, aren't these guys, like, deeply reactionary and religious on social and cultural issues and very disdainful towards poor people? And it all clicks. The libertarianism is just for PR. It's pure aesthetics. The real substance of their worldview doesn't lie in the universalist principles of the Enlightenment. It lies in their desperate need to justify their unjustifiable status as either members of the dominant class or as aspiring members of the dominant class.

This was another episode of "Liri's Twitter-inspired 2 a.m. brainfarts".

[Gormwood]

I'm really fascinated by how a lot of right-wing "libertarians" online seem to inevitably end up defending pre-modern monarchies and shitting on democracy and republicanism.

We saw it happen with the cringelords of Liberty Hangout, of course, and now the Argentine version of it did the same.

At first, you (understandably) think "that sounds like some serious cognitive dissonance", because those groups spend a lot of time appealing to (their interpretation of) classical liberal values and stuff. But then you realize... hang on, aren't these guys, like, deeply reactionary and religious on social and cultural issues and very disdainful towards poor people? And it all clicks. The libertarianism is just for PR. It's pure aesthetics. The real substance of their worldview doesn't lie in the universalist principles of the Enlightenment. It lies in their desperate need to justify their unjustifiable status as either members of the dominant class or as aspiring members of the dominant class.

This was another episode of "Liri's Twitter-inspired 2 a.m. brainfarts".

Anybody who advocates for batshit ideologies always assume they'll be in the inner circle. Nobody seriously advocates for the return of feudalism with ambitions of being a lowly serf.

[Hanafuridake]

I'm really fascinated by how a lot of right-wing "libertarians" online seem to inevitably end up defending pre-modern monarchies and shitting on democracy and republicanism.

Because they're mostly contrarians who only seek to trigger the libs rather than contribute to the community or promote actual solutions to problems. Which is one reason I have a hard time criticizing the left anymore over the right, because I see way more of them proposing real solutions to problems like climate change, wealth inequality, and consumerism while the right is either in the rich's pockets or going along for the ride so long as it makes them laugh.

[Liriena]

I'm really fascinated by how a lot of right-wing "libertarians" online seem to inevitably end up defending pre-modern monarchies and shitting on democracy and republicanism.

Because they're mostly contrarians who only seek to trigger the libs rather than contribute to the community or promote actual solutions to problems. Which is one reason I have a hard time criticizing the left anymore over the right, because I see way more of them proposing real solutions to problems like climate change, wealth inequality, and consumerism while the right is either in the rich's pockets or going along for the ride so long as it makes them laugh.

The thing about contrarians is that I think their contrarianism, at least in cases such as this, has a sort of material political purpose, even if they don't realize it: it gives them a much needed ideological justification for conformity when faced with the contradictions they experience in their given society. It's all about finding an excuse to not question, and specially not act, against the actual systems and structures causing trouble.

And in my anecdotal experience, a part of that contrarianism has a sort of masochistic function, at least as far as some of its proponents go. A lot of contrarians such as these aren't rich capitalists. A lot of them are working class. Maybe "middle class" working class, but working class still. And they can tell that there's something off, that something is screwing them over, because they feel dissatisfied and disenfranchised even though the hegemony of the society they live in teaches them that they shouldn't be and they agree. So in comes the immunization against those feelings turning into praxis: cynical contrarianism. The world is inherently messed up, so I might as well spend my political energy trying to deter others from imagining anything beyond our status quo, because there is a pleasure in that.

[Kowani]

The Spanish Second Deputy PM is calling for a UBI at the EU level (link in Spanish).

[Questarian New Yorkshire]

I'm really fascinated by how a lot of right-wing "libertarians" online seem to inevitably end up defending pre-modern monarchies and shitting on democracy and republicanism.

We saw it happen with the cringelords of Liberty Hangout, of course, and now the Argentine version of it did the same.

At first, you (understandably) think "that sounds like some serious cognitive dissonance", because those groups spend a lot of time appealing to (their interpretation of) classical liberal values and stuff. But then you realize... hang on, aren't these guys, like, deeply reactionary and religious on social and cultural issues and very disdainful towards poor people? And it all clicks. The libertarianism is just for PR. It's pure aesthetics. The real substance of their worldview doesn't lie in the universalist principles of the Enlightenment. It lies in their desperate need to justify their unjustifiable status as either members of the dominant class or as aspiring members of the dominant class.

This was another episode of "Liri's Twitter-inspired 2 a.m. brainfarts".

Anybody who advocates for batshit ideologies always assume they'll be in the inner circle. Nobody seriously advocates for the return of feudalism with ambitions of being a lowly serf.

Yeah just like nobody who advocates for status quo liberalism assumes they'll be the Indian sweatshop worker or the bombed Yemeni farmer, right

[Pasong Tirad]

Don't tread on me unless you're born in the purple.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

I think reform is the coolest thing you can do.

For large-scale, fundamental and long-lasting change, it's the coolest thing you can't do. As soon as a moment of crisis passes, the opposition will start their ideological pushback, and in a system that inherently favours their messages you will not win a plurality of elections.

You see this with the gradual rolling back of social democracy that is now even gradually impacting the nordic countries, increasing attempts to normalise the narrative that universal healthcare is unsustainable in the UK and so on.

But the banks and megacorps support pride marches and human-faced totalitarian political correctness for our own good now, and so they shout at us to stay focused on that and not that most of us are heading backwards in economics with every capitalist crash. Reformism is like trying to get the rollercoaster to go against gravity itself.

I think that you have a fair point, that peaceful reform for something massive, especially when it goes against the interests of the powerful, is very hard to do, even slowly. But not impossible. And I still think, a lot easier (not to mention more morally sound) than violent revolution.

If it were impossible to bring about significant change except through violence, then history would show that every significant change was only possible through violence. Does it show that? I don't know. Even if it did, the question becomes, how do we create a system where peaceful significant change is possible.

Also, there are ways to force the issue, make something that may seem against the interests of the rich and powerful, IN the interests of the rich and powerful, by making the consequences of not complying, worse than the consequences of complying. Similar to what Ostro alluded to.

Sorry for the late reply.

[Dumb Ideologies]

For large-scale, fundamental and long-lasting change, it's the coolest thing you can't do. As soon as a moment of crisis passes, the opposition will start their ideological pushback, and in a system that inherently favours their messages you will not win a plurality of elections.

You see this with the gradual rolling back of social democracy that is now even gradually impacting the nordic countries, increasing attempts to normalise the narrative that universal healthcare is unsustainable in the UK and so on.

But the banks and megacorps support pride marches and human-faced totalitarian political correctness for our own good now, and so they shout at us to stay focused on that and not that most of us are heading backwards in economics with every capitalist crash. Reformism is like trying to get the rollercoaster to go against gravity itself.

I think that you have a fair point, that peaceful reform for something massive, especially when it goes against the interests of the powerful, is very hard to do, even slowly. But not impossible. And I still think, a lot easier (not to mention more morally sound) than violent revolution.

If it were impossible to bring about significant change except through violence, then history would show that every significant change was only possible through violence. Does it show that? I don't know. Even if it did, the question becomes, how do we create a system where peaceful significant change is possible.

Also, there are ways to force the issue, make something that may seem against the interests of the rich and powerful, IN the interests of the rich and powerful, by making the consequences of not complying, worse than the consequences of complying. Similar to what Ostro alluded to.

Sorry for the late reply.

Don't apologise for having a life lol.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

I'm really fascinated by how a lot of right-wing "libertarians" online seem to inevitably end up defending pre-modern monarchies and shitting on democracy and republicanism.

We saw it happen with the cringelords of Liberty Hangout, of course, and now the Argentine version of it did the same.

At first, you (understandably) think "that sounds like some serious cognitive dissonance", because those groups spend a lot of time appealing to (their interpretation of) classical liberal values and stuff. But then you realize... hang on, aren't these guys, like, deeply reactionary and religious on social and cultural issues and very disdainful towards poor people? And it all clicks. The libertarianism is just for PR. It's pure aesthetics. The real substance of their worldview doesn't lie in the universalist principles of the Enlightenment. It lies in their desperate need to justify their unjustifiable status as either members of the dominant class or as aspiring members of the dominant class.

This was another episode of "Liri's Twitter-inspired 2 a.m. brainfarts".

I think that applies to some libertarians, arguably. But it certainly does not apply to all of them. Sure, the Hoppes of the world could be what you describe, and the Liberty Hangouts of the world are even worse than that, often closeted Fascists. But you ask the average libertarian party voter, and they're probably not going to lick the boots of monarchy and trash democracy.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

I think that you have a fair point, that peaceful reform for something massive, especially when it goes against the interests of the powerful, is very hard to do, even slowly. But not impossible. And I still think, a lot easier (not to mention more morally sound) than violent revolution.

If it were impossible to bring about significant change except through violence, then history would show that every significant change was only possible through violence. Does it show that? I don't know. Even if it did, the question becomes, how do we create a system where peaceful significant change is possible.

Also, there are ways to force the issue, make something that may seem against the interests of the rich and powerful, IN the interests of the rich and powerful, by making the consequences of not complying, worse than the consequences of complying. Similar to what Ostro alluded to.

Sorry for the late reply.

Don't apologise for having a life lol.

God, I wish I had a life. Or do I? Maybe that's the problem.

[Cekoviu]

I'm really fascinated by how a lot of right-wing "libertarians" online seem to inevitably end up defending pre-modern monarchies and shitting on democracy and republicanism.

We saw it happen with the cringelords of Liberty Hangout, of course, and now the Argentine version of it did the same.

At first, you (understandably) think "that sounds like some serious cognitive dissonance", because those groups spend a lot of time appealing to (their interpretation of) classical liberal values and stuff. But then you realize... hang on, aren't these guys, like, deeply reactionary and religious on social and cultural issues and very disdainful towards poor people? And it all clicks. The libertarianism is just for PR. It's pure aesthetics. The real substance of their worldview doesn't lie in the universalist principles of the Enlightenment. It lies in their desperate need to justify their unjustifiable status as either members of the dominant class or as aspiring members of the dominant class.

This was another episode of "Liri's Twitter-inspired 2 a.m. brainfarts".

I think that applies to some libertarians, arguably. But it certainly does not apply to all of them. Sure, the Hoppes of the world could be what you describe, and the Liberty Hangouts of the world are even worse than that, often closeted Fascists. But you ask the average libertarian party voter, and they're probably not going to lick the boots of monarchy and trash democracy.

Yeah, they'd be too busy slobbering and barking at the moon to do that!

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

Anybody who advocates for batshit ideologies always assume they'll be in the inner circle. Nobody seriously advocates for the return of feudalism with ambitions of being a lowly serf.

Yeah just like nobody who advocates for status quo liberalism assumes they'll be the Indian sweatshop worker or the bombed Yemeni farmer, right

I am about to present a predictable and obvious point; but I still feel it necessary to note that Yemen and India far from "status quo liberal" nations.

[Cekoviu]

Yeah just like nobody who advocates for status quo liberalism assumes they'll be the Indian sweatshop worker or the bombed Yemeni farmer, right

I am about to present a predictable and obvious point; but I still feel it necessary to note that Yemen and India far from "status quo liberal" nations.

However, they are affected by major nations employing status quo liberalism due to globalization.

[Dumb Ideologies]

The only radical libertarians and anarchists I can understand are those who don't excessively prescribe a particular form of social/cultural organisation. Lots of little communities and some can be multicultural and atheist, others can be culturally uniform or religious-based etc etc. The idea that everyone will "naturally" and organically come round to a very specific way of thinking in the absence of the state seems to me very unrealistic.

[Rojava Free State]

The only radical libertarians and anarchists I can understand are those who don't excessively prescribe a particular form of social/cultural organisation. Lots of little communities and some can be multicultural and atheist, others can be culturally uniform or religious-based etc etc. The idea that everyone will "naturally" and organically come round to a very specific way of thinking in the absence of the state seems to me very unrealistic.

They assume that human society is progressing toward their ideal of perfection. This simply is not the case.

[LiberNovusAmericae]

I'm really fascinated by how a lot of right-wing "libertarians" online seem to inevitably end up defending pre-modern monarchies and shitting on democracy and republicanism.

We saw it happen with the cringelords of Liberty Hangout, of course, and now the Argentine version of it did the same.

At first, you (understandably) think "that sounds like some serious cognitive dissonance", because those groups spend a lot of time appealing to (their interpretation of) classical liberal values and stuff. But then you realize... hang on, aren't these guys, like, deeply reactionary and religious on social and cultural issues and very disdainful towards poor people? And it all clicks. The libertarianism is just for PR. It's pure aesthetics. The real substance of their worldview doesn't lie in the universalist principles of the Enlightenment. It lies in their desperate need to justify their unjustifiable status as either members of the dominant class or as aspiring members of the dominant class.

This was another episode of "Liri's Twitter-inspired 2 a.m. brainfarts".

I think that applies to some libertarians, arguably. But it certainly does not apply to all of them. Sure, the Hoppes of the world could be what you describe, and the Liberty Hangouts of the world are even worse than that, often closeted Fascists. But you ask the average libertarian party voter, and they're probably not going to lick the boots of monarchy and trash democracy.

Yes, It depends on what type of right-libertarian you talk to. There are some who support free markets with moderate social liberalism, and there are some that are really just neofeudal reactionaries with fascist characteristics.

There are some who really are just conservatives as well.

[Kowani]

The only radical libertarians and anarchists I can understand are those who don't excessively prescribe a particular form of social/cultural organisation. Lots of little communities and some can be multicultural and atheist, others can be culturally uniform or religious-based etc etc. The idea that everyone will "naturally" and organically come round to a very specific way of thinking in the absence of the state seems to me very unrealistic.

Those types of restrictive communities are antithetical-inherently opposed to either of those ideologies, although I am torn on whether or not an atheist community would be. That sort of thinking suggests cognitive dissonance, not any sort of clarity.

[Dumb Ideologies]

The only radical libertarians and anarchists I can understand are those who don't excessively prescribe a particular form of social/cultural organisation. Lots of little communities and some can be multicultural and atheist, others can be culturally uniform or religious-based etc etc. The idea that everyone will "naturally" and organically come round to a very specific way of thinking in the absence of the state seems to me very unrealistic.

Those types of restrictive communities are antithetical-inherently opposed to either of those ideologies, although I am torn on whether or not an atheist community would be. That sort of thinking suggests cognitive dissonance, not any sort of clarity.

I have been told this before, but why is it the case? There will still be conservative people in the event of a dissolution of the state, why should they not be granted a space in which they can live in a voluntary community according to their values so long as they do not interfere in how other communities choose to organise themselves? If a substantial number of people are denied this right then aren't we speaking of imposing an imposed universalism in values, a form of totalitarian humanism larping as anarchism?